The Jefferson

The Jefferson is one of the few Australian bands playing at Canadian Music Week this year, and I had the chance to catch up with them before their show at the Painted Lady on Thursday.

This is the first time the boys have been to Canada and they’re very excited to be playing. They have toured the USA before and found the audiences in the States much more receptive of their sound. That has really changed the course for the group, they said.

They have added two members and all but scraped their first album in favour of a more electronic sound for album number two. After CMW, The Jefferson will be playing again in New York City, then off to Nashville to meet with songwriters to work on the up-and-coming album.

“Since the Aussie music scene is more DJ-focused, and we sound more along the lines of Kings of Leon or Snow Patrol, we’re going to be shopping our album around more in the States and hopefully doing a European tour as well,” they said.

With major live music venues closing around their home town of Sydney, it only makes sense to go where the fans are.

Everything seems a little up-in-the-air and all-over-the-map for this band, which can either be looked at as terrifying or exciting. The Jefferson seem to be leaning toward the latter.

They live in Sydney, are managed out of L.A., are writing in Nashville, and have no idea where they will be recording, but hope to play in Singapore. And I’m just jealous of their passports!

If nothing else they will be seeing the world.

Since bringing a new keyboardist on board, I found their sound will be much bigger; but since they couldn’t afford to bring the player on tour they will be using backing tracks for their gigs this time around.

Their tours, for the most part, have been paid for by a large government grant they were picked for out of 72 other artist – not bad!